Michael Hodgson on Willie Landels

My apprenticeship

My first job out of college was as the art assistant on Harpers & Queen magazine in London. Although I graduated with a diploma in graphic design, I had spent most of my time in my final year doing printmaking and photography, working in more of a fine art direction. Willie Landels was the editor and art director of Harpers & Queen and hired me because he liked my portfolio of silkscreen prints and etchings about the Southdown Bus Company. The bus company had lost its unique and beautiful script logo when it became part of the National Bus Company and was given a bold sans serif logo. I didn't have any “design” work as such in my portfolio and the job as art assistant was basically an apprenticeship. I learnt how to cast off copy, make stats, and size photos for plate making. I ordered the art supplies and made tea and coffee. When the long letterpress galleys arrived on the morning lorry from the printers, I cut them up and cow gummed them up on the layout sheets, often with the last galley being folded over and a request to the editor or sub (editor) to cut 25 or 125 lines. The main copy of the magazine was set in Modern No. 7, which was only available in metal, so I had the privilege and great experience of learning about type as it was. To this day find it hard to set something in a “bastard size” or on an incorrect leading. (Let's not even talk about auto leading!)

Willie was born in Italy and had come to England when he built a huge mobile for the “Industrial Power” section of the exhibition “Britain 1951” in Glasgow. He became part of the Swinging Sixties in London, that included Princess Margaret, fellow Italians restaurant owner and illustrator Enzo Appicella, storeowner Piero De Monzi and shoe designer Manolo Blahnik. At Harpers Willie worked with some great photographers including Helmut Newton, Guy Bordin and the famous triumvirate of Bailey, Donovan and Duffy. Illustrators that worked for the magazine included Adrian George, Edda Kochl, Graham Percy and the wonderful fashion illustrator Angela Landels (Willie's wife).

During my early months Willie would have me stand beside him and watch over his shoulder as took the newsprint galleys of type and crafted then into stories, or as he laid out the pages of fashion or interior photographs. Soon I got to deal with the regular “departments,” restaurant reviews, health columns, etc. Then I got my first double spread page to layout, a mens' fashion story with photographs by the then unknown photographer Tony McGee. I also started to commission illustration and was able to introduce to the readers the work of Peter Knock, Mick Brownfield, Ian Beck, Russell Mills, Robert Mason, Sue Coe, Sara Midda and Charlotte Knox.

After a couple of years I was promoted to deputy art director and eventually to art director. I left in 1979 because I had developed my own style and it was different from Willie's. I had stood beside him learning, then worked alongside him, but I was becoming very influenced by the French fashion magazines, particularly Elle under the art direction of Peter Knap, and there wasn't really room for both my work and Willies on the same magazine. The last cover I did, which was very un-Harpers, was actually changed after I left, as the publisher was too nervous about it.

It was also a great magazine content wise, not unlike Vanity Fair when that started. And as such was an education for me, introducing me to writers such as Nadine Gordimer and Ian McEwan, working with the great chronicler of style Peter York and giving me amazing insight into the world of fashion and style. Patsy from AbFab was based on one of the fashion editors I worked with!

It seems a long time ago now, but my time at Harpers was an amazing experience. I will always be grateful to Willie for my apprenticeship.

Michael Hodgson
Partner/Creative Director
Ph.D.
Santa Monica, CA